(Seneca Doane has a great diary where he is keeping track of the votes and one here with all the phone numbers. If you know somebody in these districts, be sure they call in. Local opinion matters!  Sens. de Leon, Alquist, Hernandez and Rubio should all be top targets.   – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

Last week, I had a brief chance to speak with Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones, and before he and I had to attend to other matters, he briefly stressed the importance of AB-52’s pre-increase rate regulation.  The first thing that you have to consider, of course, is that AB 52 would greatly expand the Insurance Commissioner’s power.  Now, Jones has been pushing the bill even when Poizner was calling the shots, so there must be something else.

That something else is the poor division between the Department of Insurance, which Jones heads, and the several other departments in the executive branch that manage health insurance.  When it comes down to it, the elected Commissioner, under the current system, actually has relatively little power in that whole process.  AB 52, at its core, is a simple regulation that would give the Dept. of Insurance the power to block unreasonable rate increases.

For an industry that has some rather unclean hands, it unsurprisingly fighting this tooth and nail.  It is a majority vote measure, so they must rely on a few Democrats to hold up the process.

Tomorrow’s vote is the Senate Health Committee, and under normal circumstances, with two co-authors of the bill on the committee, would likely get at least a party line vote.  But these are hardly normal circumstances, and many of these Democratic Senators have a insurance money habit that is quite hard to break. nyceve has a diary up at dKos with the names and numbers of the Senators on the Committee, which you can also find below the fold.  If I had to prioritize my calls, I would go Hernandez, Alquist, Rubio, de Leon, Wolk, DeSaulnier, in that order.  But, if you are a constituent of any of these Senators, please, please call them right away.

There will be more work to go to get this through the Senate, and then pressuring the Governor to sign it.  However, this important first step should not be neglected.  Get those phone calls in as soon as possible.

  Senator Ed Hernandez (Chair) — 916-651-4024

  Senator Elaine Alquist — 916-651-4013

  Senator Kevin de Leon — 916-651-4022

  Senator Mark DeSaulnier (AB 52 co-author) — 916-651-4007

  Senator Michael Rubio — 916-651-4016

  Senator Lois Wolk (AB 52 co-author) — 916-651-4005